One of the hallmarks of postmodernism and leftism is redefining words and the use of words. If someone puts pronouns in their bio, they are probably leftist. If the staff of the Bible Project call themselves “Director of People” or “Chief People Officer” they are probably leftist.
One of the primary reasons to redefine words is to hide one’s own guilt. For example, the policies of “Anti-racists” are extremely racist. The behaviors of “Anti-facists” reflect their fascist ideologies. The possibility of Republicans winning elections by the vote of the people, or passing legislation by majority vote, is viewed by many on the left as an existential “threat to Democracy.” They don’t see the irony in any of this.
Here is a common word with a well-known and well-defined meaning that has not changed much over time and language:
In Part 2, we discussed John Mark Comer and how he has brought the occult into the mainstream church. John Mark Comer is a polytheist (see this video). He believes in the existence of multiple gods. He denies that only one God exists, that is, he denies monotheism. This is unambiguous.
But, guess what? He denies being a polytheist! So what does he do? Does he repudiate and repent of his polytheistic view in a multiplicity of gods? No he does not. Does he honestly embrace his polytheism for what it is? No, of course not. Instead, like so many leftists, he defines and redefines words:
Solid Rock family,
Some of you have been asking some great questions about my recent teaching “Yahweh Elohim” and Solid Rock’s theology. To clarify, we are NOT polytheists. We ARE monotheists. We believe there is ONE real, true Creator God with NO equal or parallel. By using the language of “Creational Monotheism,” we are saying there are real spiritual beings in the universe UNDER the Creator God Yahweh. The demonic powers we read about in the scriptures are not “non-entities,” but are real. The New Testament calls them “demons,” “angels,” “spirits,” “powers,” “princes,” and “principalities,” but the primary Hebrew word used in the Old Testament is elohim or “gods.” These beings are “gods with a lowercase g.” They are not on par with the Creator God Yahweh. They are created, but have rebelled against their Creator to wreak havoc on the earth. This is the worldview of Jesus and of the Scriptures.
By using the language of “Creational Monotheism vs. Modern Monotheism,” we are challenging the post-enlightenment, Western European view of monotheism from the last 300 years that says there are no other spiritual beings in the universe. We don’t buy it, and we don’t think Jesus does either. At Solid Rock it is our deepest conviction to know and pursue the ways of King Jesus, to understand and adopt his way of thinking and his worldview. Stay rooted in the Scriptures, keep asking questions, and above all follow the Creator God in Jesus!
John Mark and the teaching team of Solid Rock
Thus, in the words of Chris Rosebrough, “John Mark Comer is a monotheist who believes in more than one god.” This is double-speak, what is also known as a logical contradiction, a falsehood.
If John Mark Comer just came out and honestly said he was a polytheist, he’d be rejected by Evangelical Christians. The only way he can keep up his cushy gig is by trying to hold two contradictory positions at the same time, and convincing you, the reader, to do the same.
The problem, of course, is that he is a polytheist who doesn’t like people accurately describing his views as such. In manufacturing the term “Creational Monotheism” he is doing exactly what the “Anti-racists” and the “Anti-fascists” have done: claiming as their own the terms that actually describe the views of their ideological (and metaphysical) opposition.
John Mark Comer is a polytheist. But he isn’t the only one that we’ve seen recently. Does this sound familiar?
It should. It is an appeal to a bunch of unstated cultural assumptions of Christ and the Jews. It’s precisely what we heard from “Dr. Michael Heiser” and it is the same thing that Radix Fidem teaches when they both speak of the Unseen Realm, Divine Council, and the traditions of the (pagan) Ancient Near East. By using the misleading language of “his way of thinking” and “his worldview” John Mark Comer tries to sneak in his pagan polytheistic view, putting it right onto the lips of Christ!
See, Heiser is also a polytheist, but just like Comer he denied it. Like Comer, Heiser came up with his own language to describe his special form of “monotheism” (though he has mostly tried to avoid the terms entirely). But, like Comer, he believes in the existence and reality of more than one god. He is, by definition, a polytheist:
…
The first verse hit me like a bolt of lightning:
God [elohim] stands in the divine assembly;
he administers judgment in the midst of the gods [elohim]
I’ve indicated the Hebrew wording that caught my eye and put my heart in my throat. [..] I saw immediately that the second instance needed to be translated as plural. There it was, plain as day: The God of the Old Testament was part of an assembly—a pantheon—of other gods.
By the way, if you were wondering why I opened with The Bible Project, it’s because Heiser is a big fan. The founders of The Bible Project attended the same school in the same PhD program as Heiser. As I pointed out before, Heiser was raised an evangelical Christian, but was heavily influenced by leftist “Western” Christians. He adopted their scholarship and their practices, which is why he is a polytheist. We’ll talk more about Heiser and The Bible Project in the next post. For now, it merely helps explain why he plays word games.
Ed Hurst of Radix Fidem has been highly influenced by Heiser’s work. He too is a polytheist:
Claiming monotheism is theology. It’s an intellectual position derived from a very non-intellectual faith. Henotheism is not theology; it’s a practice. In case that’s a new word to you, I’ll save you from looking it up: henotheism is the belief that, while there may be other deities out there, I am accountable to the God who called me, not those others.
Keep in mind the philosophical foundation on which this all stands. My epistemology is not based on reason and logic, but on conviction. You can say whatever you want to about that, but I walk by my convictions.
If you sign up for Radix Fidem, congratulations, you are a polytheist.
But notice what he has done. Monotheism is theology, but polytheism (that includes henotheism, by the way) is practice. Like a good postmodern leftist, he’s playing word games. He joins Comer and Heiser in adding a host of descriptors and qualifiers to monotheism and polytheism to make his polytheism more palatable. But no matter how he dresses it up (theology vs practice), it’s still just putting lipstick on the metaphysical pig that is polytheism (and the so-called Divine Council).
Oh, guess who else is polytheist? Bruce Charlton. The Mormons. Universalists. Many, many leftists.
Do you know who wasn’t polytheist? The ancient Hebrews. Their monotheism was contained in the Shema. I’ve written about that recently, in fact.
But here is the part of the Shema that we have not quoted yet:
This is the essence of Jewish monotheism. Other passages clarify that the other gods are not actually real,[1] but this is the start of it: the declaration that there is only one God.
This ties together a number of very important things. The belief in polytheism goes right along with the denial of the mind, of critical thinking, with respect to the Law of Love, the greatest commandment given by Christ (See: “A New Commandment“). It’s also why mystics deemphasize the role of scripture for other things. It’s why the occult is so alluring. These themes have been the central focus of the last few weeks of articles.
The standard Higher Criticism view of scripture is that it, along with Judaism developed incrementally out of the pagan religions. These secularists deny that God is real or that what scripture describes is real. But this is the reason they believe that Judaism was originally polytheistic and then slowly developed into monotheism over centuries. Men like Heiser and Hurst reject part of that thesis—where God and the gods are not actually real—but accept most of the rest, including the reliance of pagan sources. Do you see the problem?
Intellectually, this puts Heiser and his proponents on shaky ground: relying primarily on secular scholarship, pagan sources, and non-canonical works that espouse heretical and contradictory views. They are forced to pick-and-choose which things to believe and which things to reject, without sufficient logical grounds to do so. It’s a house built on sand.
For example, Heiser joins the rest of scholars in approaching John 10 by first assuming a particular historical interpretation of Psalm 82 and then using that to explain what Jesus said, rather than starting with what Jesus said to interpret Psalm 82. Heiser relies on development hypotheses,[2] but tries to jump off the train right before it veers[3] into a complete rejection of the existence of the One True God[4], but not before traditional scriptural inspiration and inerrancy take a hit. It’s like walking a tightrope,[5] and it doesn’t work.
Take the Ugarit literature. Heiser and the secularists believe that most (or, all) of their ancient religion was wrong. The secularists conclude that the Hebrews took the religions of their neighbors and incrementally developed them. This plainly implies that Judaism (and thus Christianity) was, literally, being made up as they went along. Heiser looks at this same scholarship and says (not literally):
It’s cherry-picking.[6]
Meanwhile, Ed Hurst’s claim that his view isn’t theology—but the opposing view is—is just not credible.
We’ve talked about many people in this series: Radix Fidem (Ed Hurst, Catacomb Resident, Jack, and John Providence), John Mark Comer, Michael Heiser, Tim Keller, the Bible Project, as well as the Roman Catholic mystics. With this post we’ve started to tie some of these together, to view how closely they share their philosophies. In the next post, we will explore these connections more closely.
Works in this series:
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 1”
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 2”
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 3” (this article)
“The Occult in the Mainstream Church, Part 4“
Footnotes
[1] In Hebrew thought, the other gods were not actually real, only spoken of as if they were real.
Hurst argues that the Hebrew people acted as if all of reality was living, sentient, and willful. But this applies to the false gods and idols! This Hebraic view did not mean that everything—including the false gods—was actually real, only that they spoke as if they were. Hurst has interpreted the expansive figurative language that is the Hebrew language as if it were literal and discrete.
Although we appreciate his reliance on logic and reason, he has interpreted the existence of other gods through the “Western” Greek framework that he rejects. His view is self-refuting.
When the Greek-speaking Christians, including Jesus and the Apostles, spoke of God, they universally described monotheism. The only divine beings they spoke of explicitly were angels and demons (and, arguably, Nephilim, the offspring of angels). Why did they speak of a “reality” of gods in Hebrew, but speak of only one God in Greek? Though the language differed, the meaning did not. The precise and static Greek New Testament clarified the active, ambiguous, dynamic language of the Hebrew Old Testament.
[2] The developmental hypothesis is this:
A generation ago, when I was a graduate student, biblical scholars were nearly unanimous in thinking that monotheism had been predominant in ancient Israelite religion from the beginning—not just as an “ideal,” but as the reality. Today all that has changed. Virtually all mainstream scholars (and even a few conservatives) acknowledge that true monotheism emerged only in the period of the exile in Babylon in the 6th century b.c., as the canon of the Hebrew Bible was taking shape. . . .
I have suggested, along with most scholars, that the emergence of monotheism—of exclusive Yahwism—was largely a response to the tragic experience of the exile.
[3] See the Mormon scholar David E. Bokovoy in “Ye Really Are Gods’: A Response to Michael Heiser concerning the LDS Use of Psalm 82 and the Gospel of John.” Mormon theology is polytheistic and presumes a “Celestial Council.” Bokovoy takes issue with Heiser’s attempt to have his cake and eat it too.
[4] Per Bokovoy:
Parker argued that verses one and five in Psalm 82 served as narrative introductions to Yahweh’s council address delivered before his father Elyon, the head of the council.
…
Heiser ultimately fails to address important evidence recognized by many contemporary biblical scholars that suggests that Israelite theology did in fact evolve in a manner consistent with the basic claims of Parker and Smith.
…
Heiser is correct in linking Elyon with Yahweh in Deuteronomy, this claim does not negate the likelihood that, in ancient Israel, Yahweh was originally a son of Elyon.
There is no compelling reason to accept Heiser’s view over Parker’s based on the scholarship alone. Indeed, Parker’s view harmonizes more completely with Mormonism and the rest of secularist scholarship than does Heiser’s view.
Heiser’s view appears to be, at best, based on an arbitrary epistemology.
[5] The best illustration of Heiser towing the line between Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity is found in his paper on Psalm 82 in which he gives sixteen arguments. He gives eight points “with which many evangelicals would probably disagree and with which many Latter-day Saints would likely agree” and eight points “with which many Latter-day Saints would probably disagree and with which many evangelicals would likely agree.” Thus does Heiser attempt tow the line between orthodoxy and heresy. See this comment:
[6] Consider this:
Now apply this to Heiser’s Divine Council.
The Old Testament writers didn’t bother describing a divine council because they considered the gods to have no significant moral reality. Whether this meant they existed or didn’t exist was beside the point. It was futile and ineffective, opposing life. Ed Hurst described it best as “senseless fluff” to which we have no relation. Thus, the Greek-speaking early church abandoned—correctly—the idea of the Divine Council.
Trying to describe the from of a Divine Council or making the false gods morally relevant to Christians is a distinctly non-Hebrew way of thinking. The Hebrew writers described the false gods (and their idols) as vain or wind (i.e. nothing). The Greek writers described the false gods as demons. In Hebrew the false gods had no significant moral reality (i.e. “senseless fluff”). In Greek, they did not exist at all.
Heiser and Radix Fidem attempt to take the moral unreality of the false gods and, describing them as a significant moral reality using English (which is like Greek). This “Western” framework is self-refuting.
In Hebrew, monotheism is true because it is the moral reality. In Greek, monotheism is true because there is only one God. The Divine Council—a pantheon of gods—stands in opposition to both of these.
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Heiser and Radix Fidem attempt to take the moral unreality of the false gods and, describing them as a significant moral reality using English (which is like Greek). This “Western” framework is self-refuting.
In Hebrew, monotheism is true because it is the moral reality. In Greek, monotheism is true because there is only one God. The Divine Council—a pantheon of gods—stands in opposition to both of these.
Oh Brian Forbes AKA Jack Wayne knew all that 5 years ago as revealed here:
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Brian Forbes AKA Jack Wayne
A-/c-/B+ – in Appeals to Authority Are Appeals to Faith, Question begging in Greek & Hebrew thought & Kindergarten (Graduated 1901)Author has 119 answers and 103.8K answer views5y
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I’m a tradcon red pill ”Christian”. And very firm with my faith, yet I’m drawn heavily to witchcraft and the ANE occult of one ”ED Hurst”/Radix Fidem. What do I do bros?
I am a devout Christian, and I’m very interested in pornography-specifically in doing a g@y porn ”Christian” swinger WP-site destroying post after others get my WP site successful for my lazy bum self. I’m terrified of it. It has tempted me to sin many times-even actively persecuting friends of mine from Kansas & other tradconnic red pill lands y’all TBH while SMH. I am also a bit of a glutton as in big fat bum. I have overeaten more times than I could count as I’m known to all my close friends as Fatboy Brian Forbes AKA Jack Wayne. I also have a tendency to irritate people on purpose and make them leave my now tradconnic Redpill WP site.
I have found it fun to discredit, troll & destroy red pill lands & sites by my $#itposting(as dat’s how WE tradcons roll brah).
I’m sure I could continue publicly confessing my sin and the things that tempt me most such as gay porn swingers I think that can teach headship lessons. But I don’t know how beneficial it would be to you or other readers. Instead, I will tell you that witchcraft is so bad that it is the evil that rebellion is compared to. “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” At its root is Idolatry. You are serving other gods. So don’t do it even if ED, Comer, and that ”Heiser” guy tell you there is a council of them!
I mainly hope I remember all these 5 years hence as I just got notified in one of my special messages from ”God” that it would be best if I do dudes!
If you (or anyone) want to have a more in depth look at the relevant scriptures, ask me before I turn to the dark side with other ANE occultists{as I’m a joiner of herds that I like to blame for my mistakes & sins), NOT a self-suffient Truth seeker with God’s help e.g. his son’s SPIRIT}.
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Derek,
Your word wrangling seems to be getting a bit silly again. Just as you once convinced yourself that “I believe X” is an example of circular reasoning. Now it seems like you’re saying that anyone who believes in any other spiritual beings, such as angels or demons, is now a “polytheist”, just like those who worships a pantheon of gods.
I now usually only scan or skim over your stuff, once or twice a week, due to limited time, and that I generally don’t find hardly any of it useful. And, of course, your comments section gets largely overrun with gibberish these days.
It is obvious that you can find fault with anything using your silly methods. Which I’ve described a few times here before. And that anybody else just as smart could find fault with everything you write if they used your same sort of silliness as their standard to rage against your own words. Anyhow, just for my own curiosity’s sake, perhaps you already covered it somewhere in all your rhetorical blather that I’ve skipped over. What do you believe? Specifically, who are the “gods” mentioned in Psalm 82 that Jesus again mentions in John 10:34?
I’m kind of on the opposite side of this issue from Bnonn Tennant and his “divine council”. I personally think that the reason Jesus was able to cite Psalm 82, in John 10:34 to defuse an accusation of blasphemy was because the Jewish leaders understood that the Psalmist had, by divine inspiration, referred to mortal human men as “gods” and “sons of the Most High”. Anyhow, while you seem to like to poke at everybody else’s belief. I was wondering if you could put your own belief regarding Psalm 82’s “gods” in a nutshell.
(And in a sick sort of way, I’d find it humorous if you went off against Bnonn’s kooky “divine council theology” in the same way you’ve gone after all these other folks who believe in the existence of other spiritual beings.)
Sharkly,
It’s not an ad hominem because this isn’t what I am saying. These are their ideas, not mine. I’m accurately reporting on what they have publicly stated in their videos and books.
Heiser, Comer, and the Mormons all explicitly assert that there are a multiplicity of gods, and that those “lesser” gods are not angels or demons. That’s their own words. It is, by definition, polytheism. Monotheism is the belief that only one God exists and they assert that there are many gods. Quibbling over their attributes and relative rank is irrelevant.
(In the case of Heiser, he’s quite explicit that they are gods because they image God, just like men and women image God. Heiser’s views on Genesis 1-3 are insanely mutually exclusive with your own.)
This isn’t meant as a personal attack or even a criticism of polytheistic views per se. It’s meant as an accurate description. You, the reader, can decide whether or not you think polytheism is correct or not. My problem is not that they are polytheists so much as they typically try to hide that they are polytheists. This is deception and deserves to be called out.
Ed Hurst, at least, don’t bother much with dissembling. He openly admits that what he believes is henotheism (the stronger form of monolatry), which is unambiguously a form of polytheism.
The testimony of the Apostles and the early church is that the elohim were angelic beings (angels or demons) and that anyone who worshipped idols worshiped demons. Anything beyond that—whether true or not—goes beyond scriptural warrant.
I had forgotten about that. I better review that again.
It depends if you base it on the Septuagint or the Masoretic text and the Dead Sea Scrolls. If the former, you think it is angels (as did the early church). If the latter, you are likely to conclude that it is men. The divine council of actual gods is a far, far distant third option.
You and I agree that the elohim are men, but you take it farther than I do (obviously). But in the specific isolated context of Psalm 82 and John 10, you and I more-or-less agree. What Jesus said only really makes sense if he was talking about men.
If you are interested in a back-and-forth dialogue, we could discuss it further, but I doubt you are up for that, so that’s all I’m going to say for now. Feel free to respond with specific questions if you want to continue discussing this.
Technically, it is not a new theology. It dates back to a couple thousand years BC in the pagan Ancient Near East. More recently, it is a core theological stance in Mormonism. What’s newer is Heiser’s attempt to marry liberal scholarship with evangelical Christianity. It made him popular, but it also meant his conclusions were… not consistent.
Not spiritual beings. Gods. Divine beings. Beings who are made in the image of God, have free will, and can have relations with human women to produce hybrid offspring (demigods).
As an aside, this topic is quite extensive and I have about a week of material already scheduled. Consider reading some of those posts to answer your questions.
Peace,
DR
I called Bnonn’s “divine council theology” “kooky” because with his collection of demigods and superheroes all helping and counseling together with God, it reminded me more of the Marvel Comics Universe or The Justice League rather than of something you’d expect to hear regarding any church’s orthodox beliefs.
Calling other Christians “polytheists” usually will be taken as a slur. You probably wouldn’t like some Muslim calling you a “polytheist” because you believe that God has a divine Son, or that God is a three-part Trinity. But that’s what they say. And their point seems about as good as yours.
And FWIW the church didn’t really clearly start preaching a Trinity right off the bat. The push for that developed over time and got to the point where they added to the scriptures to bolster their doctrine of the Trinty.
I’m not against the Trinity view, but I could see how by your same logic Muslims could call that polytheism. Glass houses!
Sharkly,
I’m well aware, but why is it a slur? Mormons don’t see it as a slur, so why also don’t those who believe in the Divine Council of actual gods? Why can’t these polytheists just do as the Mormons do and embrace their polytheism openly?
Maybe if they don’t want to be called polytheists they should consider not believing in multiple gods?
But, whether right or wrong, the logic is not the same. The Trinity is not the explicit belief in multiple gods. One could produce an argument that the Trinity is polytheism by inference or implication. But, regardless of that argument’s validity, it is still a different application of logic. The reasoning is different, I think.
I only needed to cite the definition of the word and the plain statements of the proponents of Divine Council theology to show that it is polytheism. To show that the Trinity is polytheism, I would have to do a bit more work. I’m certainly critical of some of the Trinitarian formulations on logical grounds (I have some unpublished posts on the topic), but even I can’t argue that it cleanly fits the definition of polytheism. And you should know me well enough at this point to know that I would if I could.
Peace,
DR
I called Bnonn’s “divine council tradcon theology” “kooky” because dats what my tradcon God Elrushbo{praise be his failurous career of daily lawlessness in his/her/its pursuit of opioids, fornicating w/o benefit of ”Marriage” licenses in Dominicana Republicanna & in general lazy bummery in FULL BEACH BUM WEAR(he did the last 20+ years of his radio show practically nude with just ”high-class”beach bum shorts on for crying out loud) on Florida beaches} would call I & other tradcon ”redpillers”, it reminded me more of the left-liberal Marvel Comics Universe or The Justice League rather than of something you’d expect to hear regarding any church’s highly failurous tradconnic orthodox beliefs.
Calling other ”Christians” “tradcons” usually will be taken as a slur. You probably wouldn’t like some Muslim calling you a “tradcon” because you believe that God has a divine Society in the 1950s, or that God made W.bush the first ”Christian” homosexual president of the 21st century to protect homosexual tradcons who are in denial about being sodomites. But that’s what they say. And their point seems about as good as yours or my own well-known tomfoolery of defaming, discrediting & destroying red pill lands.
I’m not against the Tradcon view but I & Fatboy lazy bum Brian Forbes AKA Jack Wayne fully embrace its tomfoolery to the nth degree unlike Dalrock who wasn’t as t@rded as us & thus was much much more successful, but I could see how by your same logic the original ”unofficial ” ”redpillers” AKA the MGTOW could call that tardconism(as all tradconistic thinking is inherently t@rded as is my own). Glass houses WE ”red pill” tardcon f@olz live our highly failurous(our ”golden age” 1950s ancestors be ashamed of our stupidity boyz) lives in!
Eh, Bnonn’s article here is just a rehashing of Heiser’s work. Bnonn’s presentation is much better, however, as he summarizes the key points much better than Heiser himself does. It might be worth responding to Bnnon’s article simply because it is the superior presentation, even though he says nothing new.
I guess I never really considered that Bnonn was a disciple of Heiser. I wonder if Michael Foster is too? Better go check…
This is interesting
On December 26, 2013, in this article, Bnonn defines inerrancy as the Bible not contradicting itself.
On April 10, 2014, Bnonn wrote this article. He was confused about whether or not the author of Genesis believed in a flat-earth-solid-sky cosmology, so he asked Michael Heiser. Bnonn was not impressed with Heiser’s response defending that view, which should not surprise my readers here.
Now, Bnonn is a smart guy. He, like many others, realizes that Heiser’s view implies that the writer of Genesis got it wrong and that the bible cannot be inerrant. So Bnonn had a mini-crisis and two days later published this article on inerrancy. Having trapped himself, Bnonn proceeds to eviscerate the idea of inerrancy. (It might be worth a post explaining how his rationalization is completely self-refuting)
A couple months later, June 13, 2014, he’s back. This time he writes this article where he deconstructs sola scriptura to allow scripture to contain errors (e.g. external pagan practices). See, he’s been reading Heiser’s material, absorbing it, and trying to figure out how he can incorporate the pagan ancient near east works. So he takes what I suspect was his old view of sola scriptura, renames it to solo scriptura, and now defines sola scriptura as matching what he currently believes. He still claims the Bible is inerrant, but he had already redefined that into meaninglessness. Now he works hard to make sola scriptura devoid of meaning.
A year later on April 2, 2015, he’s still wrestling with the Genesis 1 problem. He writes this article, where he describes Heiser’s view of the ancient Hebrews viewing the earth as covered by a dome. At 36 minutes to read, his attempt to rationalize it is unusually wordy, even for him. That, in itself, isn’t a problem, but I got the sense skimming the article that he wasn’t very confident or happy with his conclusions: stretching to find any way to justify the problems.
Interestingly, Bnonn asserts that Moses wrote Genesis, something that Heiser rejects (along with a global flood). Indeed, much of the secular scholarship that supports the divine council presumes that Genesis was not written by Moses, but was a redacted work of a much later date. Secular scholarship considers the creation account and Noah’s flood to be mythical. Bnonn struggles to rationalize his new theology with these views because he’s still trying to cling to biblical inerrancy.
I guess he gives up eventually, because by January, 2017 he finally publishes his series fully embracing Heiser’s work. He published it in book form.
It’s quite the whirlwind.
This shows what happens when you start with the wrong metaphysical assumptions, how it slowly forces the intellectually honest man to uproot everything he believes in an attempt to reconcile logical inconsistencies. So desperate is he to incorporate the pagan Ancient Near East context and the divine council theology, that he is forced to question the interpretation of Genesis 1, biblical inerrancy, sola scriptura, and even whether or not Moses actually wrote Genesis. He just slowly eats away at his core beliefs.
I find the whole thing kind of sad.
What makes this worse is what he wrote in this article on June 5, 2015. We need to use his own words here:
“Why are you defying his command to have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths; rather train yourself for godliness? (1 Timothy 4:7)”
“Training for godliness is not something that comes through visions or experiences; it comes from the Bible! All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be completely equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)”
“What more can I say? Paul was certainly correct that there will be a time when they will not put up with sound teaching, but in accordance with their own desires, they will accumulate for themselves teachers, because they have an insatiable curiosity, and they will turn away from the hearing of the truth, but will turn to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)”
Here Bnonn warns his readers not to go after myths, but rather stick to godly training. He notes that God-breathed scripture, not visions or mystical experiences, are sources of teaching. He notes that teachers will come who have an instantiable curiosity, turning to myths. I don’t think he ever noticed the irony of him embracing the myths of the ancient near east pagans.
Bnonn is a man at war with himself.
By August 2, 2019, in this article, he’s describing Psalm 82 as depicting actual gods.
I note that he has only made 26 posts since that time. On September 4, 2020, Bnonn announced that he was excommunicated from his church. So that might why he hasn’t done much with this topic. Who knows. It’s interesting to me that a man who veered into paganism would get excommunicated, but it doesn’t appear related (nor is he clearly guilty of the charges against him). I did note that he accused a member of his church of embracing paganism, when Bnonn himself has also embraced paganism. The ultimate irony is in Bnonn’s written defense:
why am I wrong to point out the syncretism of the Western church, and to try to help bring it back into line with the historic and biblical view?
Bnnon seems to have missed his own incorporation of Heiser’s syncretism, by calling it “the historical and biblical view.” That rather begs-the-question, doesn’t it? In preparing this series, what I’ve found is that everyone thinks that they are the ones doing the original Hebrew ways, while everyone else is Western. The major problem is that everyone who thinks they know the original Hebrew way is teaching something different.
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